User Contributed Notes 38 notes

Enabling MySQL with Windows Server 2003/IIS 6.0:Find your php.ini file first, check phpinfo() to see where php is currently looking for php.ini. (i.e. Using the Windows installer for PHP 5.0.4, the php.ini file was placed in the C:\Windows dir.) I recommend, however, that you don't use the installer - go with full manual install.

Set the following in php.ini:display_errors = onerror_reporting = E_ALLThis will make sure that you'll see any errors that arise during configuration. MAKE SURE TO CORRECT THESE WHEN YOU ARE DONE PLAYING WITH PHP.INI! Do not leave these settings like this on a production machine.

In php.ini set the following:extension_dir = "pathtoextensions (ususally [yourpathtophp]\ext)"extension=php_mysql.dll (make sure this is un-commented if its already in your php.ini)

In IIS, open Web Service Extensions, click "Add a new Web service extension..."Type-in PHP for the extension nameUnder required files:Add [yourpathtophp]\php5isapi.dllAdd [yourpathtophp]\php5ts.dllClick 'Apply' then click 'OK'

Create web sites like you normally would, but make sure they have executable permissions, not just script access. Under the "Home Directory" tab, click 'Configuration'. Scroll down the list at the top and see if you can find PHP. If you do, make sure the path to the executable for PHP is correct. If you don't find PHP in the list, click 'Add...', then browse to the correct executable, [yourpathtophp]\php5isapi.dll, and click OK. In the extension field, enter 'PHP'. Verbs should already be set to 'All verbs', leave it like that.

Create a test page with this code:<? echo(phpinfo()); ?>call it test.php, and place this file into the web site you just created. Browse to the page, with firefox preferably ;), and make sure that you have a MySql section with some MySql info in there. If not, then your paths are possibly screwed up, or you're still not editing the correct php.ini (again, look at the location that phpinfo() shows you, and just edit it there if you have to, then move it afterwards and re-config).

I almost had to ask myself if this was a real question... If the MySQL server rejects the connection attempt then, yes, MySQL would be able to send back an error to PHP... And if PHP can't access the target MySQL server at all then it is also smart enough to issue the appropriate error all by itself...

I use IIS 6, PHP 5.04, Windows Server 2003 and MySQL 4.1.11. and here is what I was able to figure out.To get MySQL and PHP to talk to each other, in the php.cfg, dont forget to turn on the tagcgi.force_redirect = 0, and make sure you set it at 0 (it is default at 1. just delete the semi-colon from in front of it to activate it in the code) Then the phpinfo will say its reading the cfg from your PHP install directory instead of your WINDOWS root. Then your phpinfo will show the MySQL entry that some people may be having a hard time with. No registry settings or copying of anything is needed. Also follow the rest of the excellent help from the user comments. Here's what I did, to make it simple:I made a folder in the folder tree just above program files (explore your computer) and named it PHP. I extracted the .zip php version into it (not the auto install version). I edited the php.ini-recommended, renamed it to just php, added my sql username, database name, etc.( you really gotta look closely at the cfg file and make sure you dont overlook something). Turned on the extension=php_mysql.dll (just delete the semi-colon thats in front of it). Added the php folder to the PATH (instructions on how to do this are pretty simple, and documented above). I also made the ext folder available to the PATH, but Im not sure if it's really necessary. The user comments are what really helped me, so I thought I would return the favor, and try to expand on this topic a little bit.

If you have a Windows machine running a webserver with PHP you don't need to install MySQL server to locally test scripts, if you are granted to establish a Secure Telnet connection (port 22) to the remote webserver.

To do this you need a Secure Telnet client, which supports port-forwarding.Before you establish a connection, define the port-forward.Forward local port 3306 to [name or ip of remote server]:3306Make sure that local ports accept connections from other hostsSave this session

Connect to remote server with username and passwordMinimize the shell and that's it...

You can use the same username (and password) as if you were working on the remote server !E.g. : $link = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "") or die("no way jose");

You may get a shell-timeout after xx minutes depending on your remote server, just reconnect or press enter in the shell once in a while...

Here a mysql helper containing the main functions of the mysql extension. It's easy to understand for a beginner and quite useful because queries are secure. It understands what you want, just write your sql query. I called it mysql_magic.

On Windows, the recommended way to run MySQL is to install it as a Windows service, whereby MySQL starts and stops automatically when Windows starts and stops. A MySQL server installed as a service can also be controlled from the command line commands, or with the graphical Services utility like phpMyAdmin.

PHP ---> MySQL CONNECTORS (php_mysql.dll and php_mysqli.dll as extensions)MySQL provides the mysql and mysqli extensions for the Windows operating system on http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/php/ for MySQL version 4.1.16 and higher, MySQL 5.0.18, and MySQL 5.1. As with enabling any PHP extension in php.ini (such as php_mysql.dll), the PHP directive extension_dir should be set to the directory where the PHP extensions are located.

MySQL is no longer enabled by default, so the php_mysql.dll DLL must be enabled inside of php.ini. Also, PHP needs access to the MySQL client library. A file named libmysql.dll is included in the Windows PHP distribution and in order for PHP to talk to MySQL this file needs to be available to the Windows systems PATH.

The mysql_fetch_[row|object|array] functions return data as type string. Owing to the very flexible nature of php variables, this is normally not relevent, but if you happen to retrieve two integers from a database, then try to compare with bitwise operators, you'll run into trouble, because (19 & 2) == 2, but ("19" & "2") == 0. To remedy this, if you use variables from a database with bitwise operators, use the settype() function to explicitly cast your variables as integers before comparing.

Also, to secure MySQL data and to be able to comply with PCI standards, you should encrypt the data. There are many ways to do it. For hackers, you can use dm-crypt (www.saout.de/misc/dm-crypt) tool. It is basically used to encrypt the whole partition. If you want a sophisticated solution go with Security-GENERAL for MySQL from packet general (www.packetgeneral.com)On windows, you can use disk encryption feature provided by windows itself or tool like trucrypt (www.truecrypt.org)

When a resource (e.g. a link identifier) runs out of scope, it is deleted and the associated computer resources (e.g. the tcp link to the database) will be terminated as well. So far so good!However, in the following code the tcp mysql link persists until the end of execution:<?php$conn = mysql_connect('hostname', 'username','password');$conn = null;sleep (30);?>This is because the internally the link-identifier is being saved, so that subsequent mysql functions will work. There seems to be no way to delete this internal reference.If you were, however, to open 2 connections, the oldest one will be deleted automatically (so the connection to hostname will terminate at the $conn=null statement, the connection to hostname2 will exist till the end of the script).<?php$conn = mysql_connect('hostname', 'username','password');$conn2 = mysql_connect('hostname2', 'username','password');$conn = null;$conn2 = null;sleep (30);?>

John Coggeshall wrote a PHP5 ext/mysqli compatibility script for applications that still use the old ext/mysql functions. This prevents the hassle of trying to have both the mysql and mysqli extensions loaded in PHP5, which can be tricky.

I have recently ran into a problem with configuring php extensions related to mysql (namely, mysql and pdo_mysql). Later I've discovered that it wasn't a PHP problem but that of MySQL - libmysqlclient doesn't ship with binary downloads. I've built MySQL from sources and both extensions then compiled successfully.

I'm in the process of changing web hosts and my previous host provided a "dump" of the database in the form of a sequence of SQL requests that (I assume) have to be executed in order to rebuild the database on another system. It was generated using "MySQL dump 9.11". Queries are finished by a semicolon and linefeed, while comment-lines begin with a double hyphen. The script below opens a connection to an SQL server and loads a dump file $file of this format into the database $dest_db.

If you want to get PHP working nicely with MySQL, even with Apache, under Windows based systems, try XAMPP, from Apache Friends. It saves messing about with config files, which is the only major problem with trying to get the three to work together under windows.

<?php# Created by dhirendra can be reached at dhirendrak at yahoo dot com# This script is created to check the data difference between two tables# when the structure of both tables are same.# Limitation : # 1) Structure of both tables should be same.# 2) Name of both table should be different but if same than obviously # second table should be if different database.# 3) If use two database than both database permission should be same # as i am using aliases to get the information.## USES::# 1) This may be useful when you did some changes in your existing # script and you expect the certain output. So with the help of this # function you may compare the impact due to your changes in script.##

$db1="< your db1 >"; // first database// second database if database are same for both tables than use the same as db1$db2="< your db2 >"; $table1="< your table1 >"; // first table// second table if database is same for both tables than table name # must be different but fields name are same and order of the fields are same.

Fedora mysql problems!!In Fedora 3 the php mysql module does not come with the default installation. To install it use $>yum install php_mysqlIf u dont do this you will get errors with mysql functions like mysql_connect()

On 11-Apr-2007 admin at mihalism dot com posted an 'easy to use MySql-class'.In my opinion there is a bug in the get_affected_rows-function. It refers to query-id, but it should refer to connect-id instead.

[Editor's Note: In MySQL v5.0+, you can use the INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables to retrieve information on tables, views, databases and so on. --zak@php.net]

Here is a small function to parse a mysql creation table DDL. The function takes a string with the SQL code to create a table and returns the table name, table fields, table key fields and fields type, all in arrays (except by the name, obviously). The function requires that the primary key be named "id" and the foreign keys named "id...". All foreign key types are suposed to be int (or its variations, bigint, etc...). All those restrictions are easily modified to others needs.

If you are installing PHP5 on Windows 2003 server (AKA Win 2k3) and need MySQL to work using the either the php_mysql.dll or php_mysqli.dll or both of them at the same time, and MySQl isn't showing up in phpinfo, then your php.ini is probably not loading. In the direction in the PHP 5 zip file, they will tell you to add your PHP install directory to your windows path. This should tell php where to load its php.ini from but it doesn't. If you want to get this to work, you don't have to copy any DLL's anywhere like everyone suggests. All you have to do is add the folling regsitry key to windows:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP]"IniFilePath"="C:\\PHP"

simply copy the above 2 lines of code into a text file and save the file as php_ini_path.reg

After you save the file it will look like a registry file. Simply double click on it.

It will make it so PHP will look for your php.ini in C:\PHP. I would assume you can edit this if you install php into a different location, but I haven't tried that.

After running the reg file, make sure your php.ini is in your PHP dir and make sure all the appropriate things are set. This should get you up and running. Make sure you also follow all the steps on how to make it work in IIS. This is just an addition to the direction.

i'm fairly new to this but have just managed to set up (on windows xp) apache 2.0.54 with php 5.0.4 and mySQL 4.1.13, also phpMyAdmin 2.6.4 having had exactly the problems reported by so many others. i wasnt actually aware of mySQL not being loaded in php until i tried to use phpmyadmin and it told me to check my php/mysql configuration.

basically i just did everything that is mentioned by others (setting extension_dir to c:\php\ext ( not c:\php\ext\ ), uncommenting extension=php_mysql.dll from php.ini and putting c:\php into my PATH) but i was still getting the infuriating message when trying to start apache that php_mysql.dll could not be found.

i restarted my machine and it worked! It seems i had to restart windows after editing my PATH. i didnt bother restarting until it was the last resort because on xp i have NEVER had to do this before - changes to System Variables always took effect immediately. I could understand this on, say, windows 98 where you put the addition to your PATH into your autoexec.bat but why i had to do this with xp is a mystery.

trace_mode breaks SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS.This is because it emits an EXPLAIN <query> before sending the <query> by itself, thus the subsequent SELECT FOUND_ROWS() is no longer the next consecutive query, and the result is zero.This was true for me for at least MySQL 4.0.21 and 4.1.5gamma.(PHP 4.3.9)

I've seen alot of newbies getting frustrated over the extenstions not being installed initially, so heres a quick tut for Windows.

It's ok to use the php5 installer. Just be sure to also grab the .zip or "manual" version of php5.

Install it like any other app. It's pretty straight forward. Don't forget to set the securities mentioned in the last message box at the end of the install. Next, If you installed php to c:\php then you will need to add this to your PATH environment variable. This is a very important step.

Now open up the .zip manual version of php5 and extract the ext folder, and "libmysql.dll" to "c:\php\".

You *MUST* set your security permissions on libmysql.dll and the ext folder to READ/READ&EXECUTE for IUSR_"MACHINE_NAME". like my machine is called master<acct = IUSR_MASTER>. If you don't do this you will recieve an ******.dll - Access Denied. type message.

Next edit your php.ini file usually located in c:\windows\.Find the line for extension_dir variable and make it say extension_dir = "c:\php\ext\"

Then scroll down a little bit and find the lines that say ;extension=php_mbstring.dll;extension=php_bz2.dll;extension=php_curl.dll;extension=php_dba.dll;extension=php_dbase.dll;extension=php_exif.dll;extension=php_fdf.dll;extension=php_filepro.dll;extension=php_gd2.dll;extension=php_gettext.dll;extension=php_ifx.dll

just remove the semicolin for each extension you would like loaded. Such as extention=php_mysql.dlland so on.

Now just reboot and all should be well. Query away. you basically only need to reboot to update the PATH environment variable. Hope this helps at least 1 person.:)

I am wanting to increment usernames which are to be alphabetic characters A-Z or a-z and if someone uses "abc" it will automatically be given "abc1" and the next applicant to apply for that same username will automatically be given "abc2", the next "abc3" and so on. If I enter the following into MySQL;

SELECT username FROM users WHERE username REGEXP 'abc[0-9*]';

the result is

abc1abc2abc3

I have been given the following script from another forum but it does not work;

In addition to the script not working the "LIKE" function would not be suitable because if a username was applied as "blue" it would pick up usernames "blue1" and "bluebird1" therefore it appears as if "REGEXP '$username[0-9*]' is the only or correct option.

I have tried the REGEXP option in association with the balance of the code but it appears as if PHP will not interact with the "[" and "]" in the following;

when using Fedora Core linux Mysql rpm installation.Configure as following to load the mysql header files../configure --with-mysql=/usr/Remember to do make clean to remove old configurations before compile

Since there aren't functions to start and end/rollback transactions, you'll have to use mysql_query("BEGIN"), mysql_query("COMMIT") and mysql_query("ROLLBACK"). These will only work properly on tables that support transactions. You may also wish to roll your own mysql_begin (etc) functions that run the above queries for you.

Let's say that you want to generate a MySQL password hash from a plain text password. Normally, you would just submit the MySQL query "SELECT PASSWORD('password')", but if for some reason you can't access to MySQL database directly, then you can use the following function (translated right out of the MySQL source code):

Which is the same result you get if you do "SELECT PASSWORD('hello')" directly in MySQL. Hopefully you'll never be in a situation where you have to use this, but if you need it (like I did), it's here.